The Homospiritual's Journey on Earth

Straight Supremacist Warning

Best $11 movie ticket ever. Last night I saw the movie, “The Help.” I laughed. I cried. I cheered. Best thing wasn’t the colorful (pun intended) and brilliantly written dialogue but the beautiful pauses and well-delivered punch lines exchanged among the characters. I don’t do movie reviews but this flick has me itching to pull an Ebert-move and toss up two thumbs to show my approval! So well done and so… well…

Easy to apply to my blog! (I think my friend leaned over at least 2x and said, “This is going to lead a blog post, isn’t it?”)

So, what was I thinking about my blog while enjoying this destined-to-be-Academy-Award-winning new movie?

I was thinking, “What really is the difference between white supremacy and the ex-gay movement?”

Both seek to hinder the progress of the people who are not like them.

Both seek to recruit young white people to their cause.

Both use unethical and sometimes violent tactics to evoke fear and oppress the people who are not like them.

Rather than making a plethora of comparisons, I thought I would simply take the statement that is on the KKK’s website, and replace words related to race with words related to sexual orientation and add “straight” and “gay” a few places. After reading it over, I suggest that Alan Chambers of Exodus International, Michele Bachmann and Ann Coulter get together to approve this new statement as theirstraight agenda. Let’s be real here… if you are emulating the KKK so why not own up to it and officially connect yourselves to the Klan? Maybe there’s a tax benefit in it for you.

Read it for yourself and tell me if this doesn’t this sound like something out of Michele’s mouth? Hasn’t Alan played a victim when reasonable people have taken a stand against the genocide of Exodus International? (Remember the Apple App?) Doesn’t Ann repeatedly try to usher in support by cheering on her “moral” majority and claiming the gay people have an agenda?

“There is a war against straights. But our people – my straight brothers and sisters – will stay committed to a non-violent resolution. That resolution must consist of solidarity in straight communities around the world. The hatred for our children and their future is growing and is being fueled every single day. Stay firm in your convictions. Keep loving your straight heritage and keep witnessing to others that there is a better straight way than a war torn, violent, wicked, socialist, new gay world order. That way is the straight Christian way – law and order – love of heterosexual family – love of nation. These are the principles of western Christian civilization. There is a war to destroy these things. Pray that our straight people see the error of their ways and regain a sense of loyalty. Repent America! Be faithful my fellow straight believers. ” (Paraphrasing of statement from National Director of the Knights, Pastor Thomas Robb)

So, to be clear… let this post serve as a warning that those who seek to deny rights or create “separate but equal” space for the LGBTQ community in the workplace, churches, homes or communities are no different from the white supremacists who insisted that African-Americans should piss in a different toilet, drink from a different fountain, or proverbially sit in the back of the spiritual bus that is en route to blessing and full inclusion!

We must refuse to call the ex-gay movement an “alternative perspective” or suggest that it is merely a “controversial” discussion (Shame on you, NPR!)

Call it what it is…

The ex-gay movement is no different from the White Supremacy Movement.

It is…

Hate.

~~

Furthermore, nothing should light a fire under true believers in Jesus more than knowing that in the name of your savior, they are proclaiming this hate. Many kudos to organizations such as Believe Out Loud and Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists who are Christians standing on the side of love! Please visit their pages below:

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12 thoughts on “Straight Supremacist Warning”

That is SO VERY OBVIOUS to me. I just wish it was obvious to my Christian, African-American sisters and brothers, many of whom simply do not see the connection between those who would suppress our cultural identity and those who would suppress LGBT’s gender and sexual identity.

It probably isn’t “obvious” because of all the racist undertones they must wade through to get to the point one wants to bring across… gay is not the new black and we are talking about apples and oranges when we say they are the same thing. There might be some correlations, but why would Communities of Color want to ally themselves with a LGBTQA Community that is largely racist, historically and at its GL core? This isn’t something that should be put on them, but something that is about us (white LGBTQA folks) and we should pay attention and figure it out so that we stop marginalizing others just as much as Exodus…

Hi Jenn, you can subscribe by clicking on the subscribe button to the right of this comment box :0) (It’s under the “Books” section on the right side) Glad to have ya here. As for twitter, I haven’t set up a twitter account but I’m starting to think that I should!

Oddly enough, I knew almost nothing about the movie when I went! That’s probably helpful because I expected nothing from it :0) Okay… maybe tweeting is a necessary evil for the blogging community. One more account to manage? NOOOOO!!!!!! lol ;0) Anyway, haven’t read the book just really appreciating a movie that made the power lie not in the politics or the social structure but in the willingness to listen to one another’s stories. Everyone was a hero. Too perfect for me! Goosebumps just thinking about it again.

I am very angry at Michele Bachmann, and I am very sad that people in this country are supporting her, because she really is a straight supremacist. That said, I think you need to be very careful when assuming homosexuality is analagous to race, because it is not. This is, for me, like when people compare the gay marriage movement and the civil rights movement, which is offensive to people of color, and especially to queer people fo color. It is very hard as a queer person to not want to compare the denying of rights or creating a second class of people, but homosexual people have never been enslaved for their status. Then again maybe I should say yet? I don’t know. I think it is something to think about because, for me, the analogy created comes from a place of white privilege, and that movie and the book The Help seem to be about a white character who is helped by black women, reducing these people once again to objects who move forward the plot and narrative of a white woman rather than owning their own stories and plots, potentially resurrecting stereotypes about african american women. I am not sure The Help lends any appropriate analogy for gay liberation because of this point of inherent racism. I am going to think about it some more, and maybe see the movie for myself. I am glad you found the movie meaningful, but I get kind of up in arms when caucasian queers make statements that compare two very different struggles. You know what I mean?

I’ll share here what I discussed with another person who expressed their concern about the comparison. I knew that the post would appear to polarize the subject which was a risk I was willing to take to make the point that what is no different isn’t the struggle itself or how the struggle manifests in society. What is no different is in fact, the hate behind it. Hate is universal, just as love is… it doesn’t matter who is the object of hate, when we allow it to go unchecked, we are all victims. Frightfully you make a good point when you say homosexual people have not been enslaved… YET. That is the reason I risked making such a comparison… because if we do not own up to the ways that hate works, we will have nothing to say for ourselves when we see it play out in more violent ways. Besides, who is to say that we are not as emotionally damaged, being enslaved from our identities, within closets because of hate or inequality? Who is to say that emotional damage is not as long-lasting as physical or “social” damage? I’m sure psychologists agree… the effects of hate are the same, regardless of what occurs to the body. I realize what I’m saying here is uncomfortable but I think it’s uncomfortable because it’s awfully close to the truth… so, I know what you mean, but… I’m calling it like I see it. (As for the movie, she wasn’t rescuing them. The process of them telling their stories to each other was the saving power, which I related to very deeply among people who are ex-gay survivors. Just telling the story to a person who is open to listening… it’s medicine for the soul and the movie captures that brilliantly.)

Are bigotry and racism the same thing? Maybe, Gail, bigotry is the word you are looking for here as it doesn’t seem to imply race.

We have to remember, too, that racism is not just white/black (which is assumed when one talks of slavery.) I would contend that today, in Prince William County, VA where I live, people from El Salvador are treated with the least respect. There exist whole organizations with members who speak openly about their fear of Hispanics, just as some religious groups do about people who anything other than heterosexual.

I think the where Gail’s point is valid is that the anti-gay movement is proud, just as white supremacists are. They are vocal and they think they are on the side of god, and that makes them as ugly as any form of bigotry.

There is this whole blog thing about being careful of ‘triggers.’ I don’t understand it at all; I need to find some good articles to educate me. I see the word trigger bantered about a lot and I do know discussing racism, weight and mental illness on blogs can be tricky.

Your point is valid that there is definitely an anti-gay movement going on but I don’t see there ever coming a time that gays will have to sit at the back of the bus and drink from separate drinking fountains. At least I hope not! And I know there’s the argument to be made that you can’t help being born gay, any more than you can help being born black but I think it comes down to the extreme of actions that’s hard to accept. Christians speaking/acting out in hate disguised as truth is just as offensive to me as trying to break down gay stereotypes by wearing rainbow thongs and feather headdresses on glitter-covered floats.

The people who say that they don’t see that gays have been told to sit at the back of the bus must not remember the way Senator Jesse Helms riled up the Christian right against homosexuals, saying that the AIDS virus was a judgment by God on them. I know a person who died of AIDS whose family STILL denies that person’s true resson for dying, as well as their sexual orientation, 10 years later! Too many people used that disease when it was first discovered as an excuse to hate on all gay people.

Gail, I hope I can help you out here because my reaction to the movie was very much like yours. I was doing mental comparisons the whole time between the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement and trying to find a way to explain why they are similar. This discussion always devolves into “your oppression is not like my oppression” and we get mired in the details which doesn’t help anyone.

One scene especially struck a chord in my own reality. When Skeeter and Aibileen were sitting in the kitchen at Aibileen’s house the first time and Minny came in and said “What makes you think we need your help??” Wow. I had just been feeling that same resentment toward straight people, Christians, who have involved themselves in the gay rights movement. What makes them think that we can’t achieve our own rights by ourselves? Are they here to “save” us?

I think what turned the tide in the civil rights movement was the fact that it was time for things to change. One person stood up and then another and another. Enough people had to become empowered to really turn the tide because for any “minority” group of people, their own numbers are not enough to create quantum change. It takes the changing of the hearts of those outside the group to push the cart over the edge.

If those of us who have had to work past any kind of fear-based oppression toward an entire group of people insist on arguing over semantic differences in our struggles then we will have missed the point of fighting for equality. What reason will we have to fight against the oppression of others if we can’t see the deeper dynamic that unites them all?